


A Strange Little Scholar

by Ludovica



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works, The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, Rivendell, intercultural bonding (of sorts)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-23
Updated: 2012-12-23
Packaged: 2017-11-22 03:36:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/605400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ludovica/pseuds/Ludovica
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erestor had been quite positive that he would be able to avoid all this dwarf nonsense by simply staying hidden away in his office and the library, like he did most of the time anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Strange Little Scholar

Erestor had been quite positive that he would be able to avoid all this dwarf nonsense by simply staying hidden away in his office and the library, like he did most of the time anyway. He had no great interest in interracial relations, especially with a folk that was quite hostile towards his own people as it was.

He generally didn’t approve all that much of Lord Elrond’s affinity to host members of other people, really. He could live with the company of rangers, and some humans weren’t all that troublesome (and honestly, hobbits were quite amusing fellows when you enjoyed them in small doses), but – dwarves? Really, his lord’s affiliation with this dreadful Istari had hardly ever resulted in anything even close to favorable.

But since this issue was not a concern for Elrond’s council, he was free just not to associate with their ‘guests’.

And that was just what he was planning to do.

There was quite enough to do anyway. He had found a few contradicting entries in different chronicles of the same period of the Second Age, and was now trying to find out which one was more reliable. Of course this meant that he had to consult similar accounts, look for the authors of the chronicles in other works, see if there were any other diverging points in the works in question… Enough to do to spend a few days in the library.

This sort of work was one of Erestor’s favorites. It was a very relaxing kind of work, and quite captivating as well, if he dare say so.

He was just looking through a quite thrilling account of the aquifer of Númenor (an excursus, he had to admit, but once in a while it was quite all right to pursue his personal interests during a day of concentrated research), when he suddenly heard footsteps in the next aisle.

Quite heavy footsteps, at that.

Erestor frowned and laid the book aside on one of the many bookrests of the library.

When he turned around one of the high bookshelves and peeked into the next aisle, he caught sight of a tuft of red hair, very close to the floor, and some sort of shabby-looking coat, disappearing behind another bookshelf.

Erestor held back a low sigh. Completely inaudibly he snuck after the intruder, turning around the next bookshelf.

He was looming behind the dwarf, arms crossed in front of his chest, when he addressed him.

“Are you looking for something, or have you just gone astray, dwarf?”

The sound of his voice startled the dwarf apparently, and he regularly jumped forward with fright and stumbled over his own feet before he spun around to face him.

He seemed to be very, very young, as far as Erestor could say something like that in regards to dwarves. He didn’t even have a full beard yet, just some tufts of hair under his chin.

He also had an exceedingly dumb face.

The dwarf stared up at him from his little brown eyes, as if Erestor was some sort of apparition.

He raised his eyebrows in an anticipatory manner, which finally seemed to prompt the dwarf to open his mouth.

“Oh!”, he called out, “I beg your pardon, Master Elf, I… I didn’t actually expect to find anybody here!”

Erestor felt his eyebrows wander higher up his forehead. “Well, at places filled with books like this one, there are usually people to read those books.”

“Yes, of course”, the dwarf bubbled, nervous little fingers playing with one of the ugliest scarfs Erestor had ever seen in his life.

“That’s also the reason why I’m here, actually”, the dwarf continued, clearing his throat. “Uhm, reading. Yes. I… Uhm, I heard about this library, and…”

Erestor huffed a bit at that. “Can you even read any elven language?”

“Well…” The dwarf looked up at him, nervous like a little child. He really seemed to be very, very young. “Uhm, not elven languages, but, Westron, yeah, and, uhm, Angerthas, I can read that, and write that too…” He moved his hands through the air nervously, as if he tried to shoo a whole swarm of flies away. “I’m, uh, I’m our groups scribe, Master Elf.”

Erestor was quite surprised by his words, but he did his best not to let it on. “You look quite young for a scholar, don’t you?”, he asked, keeping his voice steady and cool.

The dwarf blushed slightly and tugged on his woolen mittens. “Yes… I mean, no… I mean-“

“Think, then talk, boy”, Erestor said, noticing too late that he had used his tutor voice which he usually only used with the few young elves of the valley.

The dwarf froze for a second, then cleared his throat again. The labored look on his face let Erestor to believe that he was actually heeding his advice.

When he was speaking again, he was actually not stuttering and stammering anymore. “I am very young, that is true, Master Elf, yet I have always had a great love for books and scrolls and the like, and, well, I have spent a lot of time learning to read and write.”

Erestor looked him over. Well, he did look more like a scribe than a warrior, that was true.

“Erestor”, he said.

The dwarf blinked. “What?”

“Erestor.” He could hardly keep himself from rolling his eyes. “That is my name. Not ‘Master Elf’.”

“Oh!” The dwarfs eyes widened a bit with understanding. “Oh, alright then, Master Erestor, I’m sorry if I insulted you…”

The elf put him off with a wave of his hand. “Don’t worry about it.” He looked the dwarf over again. He did indeed see a few stains of ink on his hands and his clothes, as well as a bit of graphite dust. “And your name is…?”

“Oh! I’m sorry, Master Erestor, I should have introduced myself right away, that was right rude of me, wasn’t it.” He took a deep bow in front of him. “Ori, at your service.”

“Ori, so?” That name was neither less nor more stupid sounding than usual dwarf names.

Erestor looked around for a second, then motioned towards another row of bookshelves. “We keep books in Westron back there. If you want to, you can take a look at them.”

A sort of delight appeared on the dwarf’s face that actually touched something in Erestor. It was the same kind of feeling he had had every time Arwen had excelled in her studies, or one of the twins had actually shown true interest for a subject.

Of course he would never admit to feelings like these towards a dwarf kid.

He cleared his throat and then looked at him again, with a stern look in his eyes this time.

“But do make sure that your hands are clean. I do not want to have to deal with graphite smears or ink spots in these books.”

“Of course, I would never-“ Ori muttered and took his mittens off. He shoved them into one of the many pockets of his coat and pulled a piece of rough, but clean looking cloth out of another (honestly, why did dwarf coats always seem to be some sort of bee hive of pockets?) before he started to rub his hands down with it.

When he held his hands out to Erestor, they were clean enough that the councilor was quite sure that he really would not stain his books, and he gave a grave nod to show that he was satisfied with his efforts.

Beaming with joy, the little dwarf darted off towards the Westron books.

~*~

Erestor had to say that he really hadn’t thought this would work out well at the beginning. The dwarf came again every day, and soon he seemed to have read about half of the books on ornithology and botany in the West of Middle Earth. Erestor kept track to make sure that none of the books were damaged or misplaced when he put them back on the shelves, but he never once even saw a dog-ear in any of the precious leather-bound tomes.

Once in a while, another dwarf came with him, but only to the entrance of the library. He was older, silver-haired, and shot Erestor a very suspicious look whenever their eyes met. Erestor just replied with a raised eyebrow and turned around to his research again, while Ori disappeared into the aisles of the library towards the shelf he had been scavenging the day before.

It surprised Erestor, who hadn’t had more than three hours of sleep any night in the last two hundred and eighty seven years, to find that the little dwarf had quite a similar sleeping rhythm as him. Quite often, Erestor would make sure that Ori was well-equipped with tallow candles, and sometimes he would wake up over his scrolls to find that his own candles had been blown out quite early after he had fallen asleep on his work (judging by how much of them still hadn’t burned down).

It wasn’t as if they were actually talking a lot. Erestor had never been one to talk much when he didn’t have to, and Ori seemed to be very content to stay quiet most of the day. Yet every once in a while, Erestor would pass the aisle were Ori was currently leaning over some intricate illustrations, and they would nod at each other briefly, and Ori would smile shyly and a bit apologetic, as if he was aware of his status as an intruder and as if he was actually sorry that he was interfering with Erestor’s solitude.

Of course, other elves frequented the library as well, though none as much as Erestor did in these days when the members of the White Council held their meetings and there was a risk to stumble over a dwarf wherever you went (even in the library). Councilor Saelbeth and Ambassador Silinde both looked at Erestor quite puzzled when they came to the library to find a dwarf sitting just an aisle away from the councilor and archivist, and the Captain of the Guard, Glorfindel, actually came to visit him once for the mere reason to see if the rumors about Erestor’s little ‘guest’ were true, and Erestor was pretty sure that Glorfindel would have let out quite a plethora of stupid jokes if he hadn’t shooed him out of the library again, claiming that his boots were filthy (which they were).

He was quite grateful for all the work he had put into his reputation as ‘rather an unpleasant fellow’, so that actually few apart from these three elves came to the library during the two weeks of the dwarves’ stay.

And so the days went by, and a week, and ten days, and at some point Erestor couldn’t help but to admit to himself that he was getting used to the dwarf’s presence. Ori even proved to be quite useful, after a while. Every now and then Erestor would ask him to fetch a new piece of parchment for him when he was furiously noting something down and couldn’t spare a second to get new supplies, or the dwarf helped him find one special book in the stacks Erestor was clustering around his workplace. Ori was really good at finding things, he noticed after a while, and he generally had quite the bright head on his shoulders, even though it was so close to the ground.

So, when Ori told him on the evening of the thirteenth day that they would finally continue their quest on the next morrow, Erestor felt a very strange kind of regret in his chest. He had really come to like the dwarf, he realized. If Ori were an elf, he surely would make a great student, and Erestor had always had a soft spot for smart, eager-to-learn students. And his shy nature had also touched Erestor a little bit more than he would let on to anybody.

He dismissed Ori with hardly more than a curt nod when he took his farewell in his usual, stammering way. He was going to return to his dwarven friends a lot earlier today, since of course he would need the energy of a good night’s sleep for their journey the next day.

There was something like insecurity, confusion, in Ori’s eyes when Erestor didn’t actually say goodbye to him, but he left the library nevertheless without further comments, and the elf was rather glad about it, to say the truth.

Though he wouldn’t let Ori go without a real goodbye, and so he was with Lord Elrond and the other higher ranking inhabitants of Imladris when they bid farewell to the dwarf group and Mithrandir.

While Mithrandir, Bilbo Baggins and Thorin Oakenshield bit farewell to Lord Elrond, and some of the other dwarves said goodbye to other members of Elrond’s household (the two dwarves that seemed to be youngest next to Ori apparently had made friends with the twins), he snuck around the patio to Ori, who was standing behind the silver-haired dwarf and was apparently trying to get his scarf to cooperate (which was quite a forlorn fight in Erestor’s opinion).

When Erestor cleared his throat behind the young dwarf, he jumped once again, but when he turned around, the elf was pleasantly surprised to see a positive sort of astonishment on Ori’s face.

“Master Erestor!” he called out, and the silver-haired dwarf and another one, with hair that looked like a children’s rendition of a starfish, turned around to them. Ori’s ears turned red when he noticed that, but he looked up to Erestor again nevertheless. “I hoped you’d come and say goodbye, Master Erestor.”

Erestor tilted his head slightly. “It would have been right rude of me not to, wouldn’t it?”

Ori beamed up at him, yet confused surprise fell upon his expression again when Erestor pulled a little, brown package out of his robes, hardly bigger than the elf’s hand, and held it out for the young dwarf.

“What is that?”, Ori asked while he took the package and opened it carefully (Erestor hadn’t wrapped it very thoroughly to begin with).

“A little illustrated compendium on the flora and fauna of the area around Imladris”, Erestor replied. “With their Elvish names. I have put a short list on the different sounds of Sindarin compared to Westron into the book as well, so you can pronounce the words correctly.”

Ori looked at him open-mouthed for a few seconds, then his face turned as red as his hair all over. “Thank you very much, Master Erestor.”

Erestor nodded. “If you should come through your adventure safely, I’d be happy to see you again in Rivendell. I think some of the things you will see beyond the mountains might be worth being recorded in our library. And since you are, as you said, your group’s scribe…” He let the words linger in the air between them, and Ori nodded with a smile.

“If we ever meet again, Master Erestor, I will repay you for this present.”

Erestor tilted his head again. “I hope you and your party fare well, then.”

He turned around and left the patio. The last thing he heard of the dwarves was a little murmur of the silver-haired one, who was muttering something along the lines of “Just don’t let Thorin see that” to Ori.


End file.
